


Cancer Sucks

by SpeedyStar



Category: No Fandom
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-21
Updated: 2019-03-21
Packaged: 2019-11-26 21:11:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18185783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpeedyStar/pseuds/SpeedyStar
Summary: Just a personal narrative. I felt like blowing off some steam, so this is pretty sloppy and raw.





	Cancer Sucks

Cancer sucks. In the families that it afflicts, it either brings the families together or splits them apart. In my case, it split my family apart. I'm a middle child, and the day my mom found out my little brother was diagnosed with stage four cancer, she texted me first. Basically she said, the worst case scenario had happened--he had cancer--and I was to relay the new information to all of my other siblings. I kind of monotonously told my older brother, who was in his room, and then left. It didn't feel real. Cancer had always been this strange foreign entity, and the only time it was ever supposed to be a part of my life was in bad fanfiction. I let my older sister know as well. My younger siblings had as hard a time as me understanding because to them cancer was what they gave pennies to every year. Cancer wasn't something that could affect us, but it had. Everything changed from there.

  
My older brother had this best friend, and he spent a lot of time with him. Before long, it was like my brother was living with his best friend. He says it was to make it easier on his family, and I believe that was a part of it; however, he was also running away. My older sister and brother went to these nice private schools far away, and my sister was always slammed with homework. She would get home so late and then disappear into her textbooks. She was so foreign to me. She soon followed in the steps of my brother, spending a lot of time with her best friend. I felt abandoned. I had to run the house with the help of my stepdad. I had to take care of my younger siblings. My stepdad was away for a lot of the time, so really everything fell to me. My mom could only come home on the weekends, and she would be so sad. She would cry to me, and I would listen. I had to be strong for my mom, so I couldn't cry to her. I felt like I couldn't talk to anyone. Other people always told me that I looked so sad, so I would tell them I was okay; I'd say I was just deep in thought. Life seemed so impossible because my little brother's cancer was really aggressive. Not only did the doctors think he wasn't going to live, but children with the same cancer as him were dying in that hospital ward.

  
It got worse from there. My mom was pregnant when my brother was diagnosed, so someday she was going to go into labor. She was so stressed over everything. Then, my stepdad started to have issues with his health. My mom urged him to go to the hospital, but he insisted he was fine. He would still go to work. Then one weekend, my mom got really mad at him. She told him that he smelled like death, there was something seriously wrong with him, and he needed to go to the hospital immediately. That's when my stepdad was diagnosed with cancer. Two cases of unrelated unhereditary cancer were occurring in my immediate family. It was so ridiculous. I was so very bitter and sad. I hardly ever got to see my brother when he was in the hospital, but my sister and brother did. They were always gone, but they still got to see him. Among the few times, I was actually able to see my brother, he was sleeping almost all of them. One time I helped him open Christmas presents. The worst time though was when he looked at me and said, "I don't want to die." That really made me want to cry because he was only two. I couldn't cry though because I was only allowed to cry in secret.

  
My little brother had cancer, my mom was many months pregnant, and my stepdad had cancer. I was late to school almost every single day because my ride had to drop off my brothers first. The school okayed many of my tardies because there was nothing I could do about it. The reason my family got dinner essentially every night was because the Mormon ward in my area stepped in. There was a cooler outside my house, and every day people form the Mormon ward brought us food. Food we had for dinner, and leftovers we ate for lunch and breakfast. In those times, I learned to always put myself last. I felt like I was being forced to grow up.

  
I definitely have a lot of leftover issues from those times, but things have gotten better. I'm at the school my sister went to now. My sister is going to a good college, and so is my brother. My little brother is three years cancer-free. My younger sister is lovely despite the chaos she was born in the midst of. My stepdad is also cancer-free, but he's not totally out of the ballpark. Our family still has a lot of issues because that's what two years without income will do to you. It was years ago, but I can remember it like it was yesterday. I can remember almost blacking out from not eating. I can remember crying myself to sleep. I can remember feeling truly alone. I don't think I'll ever truly be able to get over it. I know my time to be a kid is running out, so I've been giving it my best go. Despite everything that's happened, I have aspirations to give people a home in writing because books were the only thing I could rely on in those times. When the person I considered to be my closest friend stopped speaking to me, I only had fictional characters left. When I was alone, I found a home in my favorite stories for short periods of time. If I can make something that is even a sliver of how important my books are to me important to another, then I will be happy.


End file.
